Post-class blog 10/3 -RS

In this weeks readings on Baudrillard and Zizek's "The Desert of the Real" and Eco and Dorfman et al.'s "The Disneyfication of Reality," we examined Disney's role in imagination, the creation of fantasy, and in grasping reality. In Eco and Dorfman et al.'s essay, the specifically critique Disney on their involvement in children's lives and imagination.

Disney has virtually become such an icon associated with children's dreams and fantasies they they have come to set the standard what is good and pure. The authors comment that Disney's comics and other content is embedded with politics and values that "are devised by adults, whose work is determined and justified by their idea of what a child is or should be" (p. 112). Even more, Eco and Dorfman note that basically all children's literature and content is manipulated by the adults who create them to inflict certain ideas and values upon them. They state that the imagination of children is channeled to "ethical and aesthetic ideals" set by society (p. 113). They basically also state that children exist for adults to project their own hopes, fantasies, unfulfilled dreams, and regrets upon.

Although I understand and agree for the most part with Eco and Dorfman's declarations and critiques on Disney and children's literature, I struggle to understand what their call to action and takeaway they have for readers. I sense a main theme of using a critical lens and being especially wary of Disney, with a point that no matter our intentions, children's content is inevitably always political. However, do they suggest that there be no children's literature unless it is written by the kids themselves?

In addition, I feel that they go so deep in their critique of Disney and the politicization of Children's literature that they raise many more questions involving philosophy, especially regarding ethics and morality. For example, If we're projecting these value onto kids is that even our right to? Who are we to determine what values and rights we project onto the young, impressionable children? What values should we even project onto them and is there even an answer to what we SHOULD be teaching them? If children's literature is thought of as being used to promote good teachings and lessons upon kids, how do we decide what the "right" and "wrong" messages are to promote on them? Although Eco and Dorfman's analysis is deep and thought-provoking, it is almost so highly critical that I fail to see a cohesive attempt at what individuals could do to work towards a solution.